


The Writer in the Machine

by Iamnotthewriteryourelookingfor



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen, John Reese is a teddy bear, Mentions of attempted suicide, So she hires a desperate writer, The Machine Ships It, The machine needs income, vague mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 19:54:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8026822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamnotthewriteryourelookingfor/pseuds/Iamnotthewriteryourelookingfor
Summary: The Machine needs a new source of income now that Samaritan is hunting. She has a great (terrible) idea to hire a writer.Because nothing sells quite like an action-filled tragedy.





	The Writer in the Machine

There was someone in the base, Harold could tell. But the alarms hadn’t been triggered; could it be John, back early and snooping again?

Maybe it was Root, she enjoyed dropping in and out, although she had Bear right now and Bear wasn’t this quiet when he smelt Finch nearby.

Perhaps it was Shaw?

 

As he neared the carriage, he heard the sound of typing; it wasn’t the calm, determined typing of either John or Shaw and it wasn’t the steady tap-tap-tap that told him that Root was messing with his computer. He felt fear building up inside him, he was alone and someone had let themselves into his base. He pulled out the gun John had insisted Finch carry around now that Samaritan was watching and crept forward as quietly as his limp would let him. He was close when he heard a female voice, supposedly talking on the phone

“And you know if they shoot me, you’ll have to find someone else to do this for you.” There was a pause, supposedly while the other person spoke before she said “Ha, ha. That’s bull and you know it. I’m good at what I do and there aren’t that many people as desperate as I am.” Finch entered the carriage and found a young lady sitting at his computer a laptop resting on her knees. She was pale with dark straggly hair and shadows under her eyes.

“Hey, was’up?” she smiled at him before returning to her laptop, her fingers dancing over the keys. “The machine says you won’t shoot me. John might and Shaw def will but you won’t.”

“You work for the machine?” Finch asked, not lowering his weapon a bit.

“Not like you. I’m giving her a new income stream to keep your side running.” She hadn’t looked up from her laptop since he had first entered and kept typing in an uneven, jerky, way.

“How?”

“I wrote a book.” Her laptop chimed. “Sorry, we wrote a book. Though I did most of the actual writing, she just provided me with names, crimes, research. What she calls ‘relevant data’.” She held out a thick paper-back. On it was a photo of a busy street that looked like it had been taken on a security camera. On it were large black letters that said the book’s title was ‘ ** _Person of Interest’_**. A tag line under the author’s name said ‘ _You are being watched’_

 “Finch?” John had arrived, his weapon drawn. “Who’s this?”

“Sapphire.” The girl said, still not looking up from her laptop. “At least that’s the name I write under, Sapphire Rose.”

“She wrote a book.” Finch explained to John’s confused expression. “About us.” He handed the book over to John.

“I had to change names, some places, not as much as I wanted to but..” She shrugged. “The only one who’s name stayed the same was Root. There are five books in total; the first one, that one, goes on sale in an hour, the second one is in print, the third is ready for print, the fourth is being edited now and the fifth has hit a wall.” she looked up at them, “We’re arguing about how the series should end. She wants it to end how she predicts and I want it to end well. Up ‘til now I’ve been writing about things that’ve happened but now it’s all predictions. Shitty predictions.” She watched as John opened the book and began reading. “Most of the story is told from John’s perspective except for one chapter is each book which is from the perspective of someone else; book one is Finch, book two is Root, book three is Carter, book four, Fusco and book five is Shaw.”

“James Smith?” John asked, regarding his name in the novel.

“Yeah, the machine insisted on changing your last name to Smith and I couldn’t keep John, it felt unimaginative. So there are a lot of James Bond jokes in there.”

“Why are you telling us this now?”

“I guess the machine wanted you to know before it hit the shelves. And she wants Root’s opinion on the ending.”

“Even though it might give everything away?” Finch asked, concerned about what the machine has predicted.

“If it means that nonsense won’t happen, fuck yeah.”

“What does happen?” John asked, looking up from the book.

“You die, the machines crash and burn and then everyone just goes home. It’s a shitty ending and is completely contrary to how I’ve portrayed everyone so far. Well OK, you sacrificing yourself for everyone? Yeah, I can see that, but everyone just going home?”

“We’re not fictional characters.” John growled, closing the book

“You’re not. But James Smith is. The amount of stuff I’ve had to make up means that you’re probably really different.”

“I thought the machine gave you all the information you needed.” Finch said, raising a hand to hold John back.

“Only the things she thought I needed, who you saved, how you saved them, some vague back story info. That’s how you build a timeline, not a deep, well-rounded character that feels like a real person. For that I need favourite foods and childhood fears and the story of their first kiss. Even though these things may not make it onto the page, they’re important to the building of a character.”

“How do you mean?” John asked, opening the book again

“While James will eat pretty much anything, he loves cheese on toast which may not seem like much but it reminds him of the time the power went out and he and his girlfriend made cheese toasties on the  radiator while they told dumb stories by candle light.” She shrugged as John looked at her over the top of the book. “It may seem stupid but it helps. Also you might not want to actualy read that.” She added, her brow creasing slightly. “You, well James, has a thing for…” She glanced at Harold “…Swift. That’s Finch, by the way.” She explained. “I mean nothing happens until maybe the end of book five but…” She shrugged then sighed. “Look, everything I write is super gay. I mean Root and Adam, you know Shaw, are a thing in book four. Shaw had better not shoot me for that by the way.”

“Shaw’s gone.”

“Yeah, nah. She’ll be back. Don’t worry.”

“When?” Root had finally arrived. Sapphire shrugged,

“If I tell you, the future will probably be changed causing the information that I give you to be incorrect.”

“That makes sense, I guess.” John shrugged, handing the book over to Root.

“The machine told me she wanted me to look over some chapters.”

“Well, one chapter. The final one. See, she wants it to be like she predicts, John dies, the machines crash and everyone goes home. But I want something a little more open ended. Swift, Finch, almost dies, he and James kiss, and they think the machines have crashed. Then the pay phone rings, Swift picks up the receiver and a mechanical voice gives him a new number.”

“Ooo, I like that.” Root said, accepting the pile of printed paper she was handed. She gave Bear’s leash and the book to John and sat down to begin reading.

Sapphire got up and put her laptop away. She stretched and looked at her phone when it beeped. “Thanks to the wonders of online purchases, over 100 copies have been sold in the first five minutes. And that’s not counting the pre-orders.”

“You are a known writer than, aren’t you?” John said as Finch sat down at his work station and booted up the computer.

“Online only, it seemed every publisher I went to wanted me to change an important part of my novels; sexualities, themes, you name it. I didn’t mind not having an income from the online publishing, I don’t write for the money. But now that the machine’s my publisher. And my editor. I’ve got things covered.” She stood near John, ratty jeans and a hoodie, barely coming up to his shoulder.

“The machine is your publisher?” John asked, opening the book again, looking for publishing information. ‘Binary-Finch publications’, John smiled.

“And my editor. She isn’t very good about subtlety. Or really creative writing. That’s why I’m here. Because I could write a decent story and was desperate enough for work to follow the bizarre instructions I need to in order to communicate with her.” She held out a notebook full of writing.

“What’s this?”

“Backstory, timelines, character files, everything I needed to write book one.” John held the notebook in his hands, it felt heavy, worn, with pages and drawing almost falling out. He opened the front cover to see a sketch of a library-base set up, similar to what they used to have. There was a neater version inside the front cover of the book. There were sketches of her characters, similar to the original people but different enough that no one could properly claim it to be them. There were lists of names, photos of weapons, pages of backstory in bullet points and character sheets listing appearances, personalities, preferences, everything. It had more information than dossiers the CIA used to give him. There were even codes for everyone; Asset 1-56 was Swift, Asset number 1, aged 56. It was a simple code. Each novel had a different tag line. Book one was _‘You are being watched_.’ Book two was ‘ _The numbers never stop’_ , then there was ‘We can’t save everyone’, ‘ _We are being watched’ and book five was simply ‘Samaritan’._

John wasn’t sure he was comfortable about having novels written about him but what he had read in the novel and what he was reading now in her information book, made him feel happy in the representation. James Smith was younger than he looked, he had salt and peppered hair and stress lines etched into his face from working in the Special Forces. He was more comfortable with violence and didn’t like talking about his feelings, although he had many and there was a list of just when and how Swift would chip away at his hard outer shell. He was surprised at how intelligent she had written Smith, and how sophisticated she had woven in past and present moments in what little of the novel he had read of the actual novel. He opened it again, James had just beaten up some young hooligans on a subway and was being interrogated by a nice female detective by the name of Joanna Watson. Obviously Agent Cater. She had been represented rather well. A sudden stab of sadness filled him.

“Carter?”

“It was one of the things the machine insisted on. I wasn’t happy about it, I loved writing Carter. But apparently she had to... well, it had to be the same as what happened. That’s book three. Though she makes an appearance in book four as a hallucination. Your hallucination.” John was about to question her further when Root gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, tears welling up in her eyes. “You reading my chapter?” Root nodded

“Shaw and I just reunited after the explosion and John just found what he thinks is Harold’s corpse.” She sniffled and continued reading as John gave Sapphire a questioning look.

“It gets dark. Really dark.” She explained “like put-your-gun-in-your-mouth dark. But it’s OK, because Finch is OK and then you kiss and it’s beautiful and Bear’s there. I call him Bear because it was a funny joke, he comes in during chapter one of book two, Root is the end of book one and Shaw is mid book two.”

“And Zoe?”

“The fixer? I call her Lady Jade, she’s mid-book one.” Joh wondered how much the machine had really told her because he did love Finch, maybe more than he was prepared to admit even to himself. And he could definitely see himself pulling the trigger if he was in a world without Finch. He and Sapphire looked to Root as she took a deep breath and wiped her cheeks.

“That was beautiful.” She said, holding out the chapter. Before Sapphire could take it back, John snatched it out of the air. He found the part where his fictional doppelganger had found the smocking creator that used to hold the leader of Samaritan and Harold. In it were two smoking corpses. Even though John knew this was going to end happy, and that it was fictional and not what the machine had predicted, he felt fear. He read as Smith mourned, standing in front of the smouldering rubble, putting the muzzle of his gun into his mouth as his ear piece beeped.

_‘Mr Smith? Are you there? James?’ at first Smith thought that he was dreaming but the voice persisted. ‘James, where are you? Are you safe? Talk to me please.’ The gun left his mouth_

_‘Swift?’_

John read on as Smith ran through the streets searching for his friend, finally finding him, bruised but alive and without a second’s hesitation, kissed him. Breaking away as Root and Shaw’s characters hooted and whistled, having witnessed this kiss and loving every minute of their team mates finally getting over their insecurities. Swift paid them no heed and pulled Smith back in for another kiss. The machines were gone, or so they thought, and they were just taking a moment to see what their new life could be. Then that moment was over, and the pay phone near them rang. Swift and Smith looked at each other before Swift raised the hone to his ear and listened to the machine as she gave him another number.

John looked up at Sapphire, who was watching him closely.

“Use this one.” He said, his voice somehow raspy.

“Sorry to break up the party,” Finch said, turning in his chair. “But we have another number.”

Sapphire smiled.

“That’s my cue to exit. That’s my copy,” She said, tugging the novel out of John’s hands. “Lucky one, first off the press but I’ll make sure to get you a copy if you like.” She smiled up at John and he found himself smiling back. She gave Bear a pat and left. John put her out of his mind as he turned his attention to the new number, already planning on picking up a copy as soon as he could.

*

*

* 

_‘You are being watched. The government has a secret system, a machine, it spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror but it sees everything, violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you, crimes the government considers irrelevant. They wouldn’t act so I decided I would but I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You will never find us but victim or perpetrator if your number’s up, we’ll find you.’_

**Author's Note:**

> Sapphire's ending is basically how I want the series to end. Sad, gay and open ended.
> 
> The machine's codes if anyone wants to know:  
> Harold Finch - Daniel Swift – Asset 1-56  
> John Reese – James Smith – Asset 2-39  
> Lionel Fusco – Detective E. Lions – Asset A42  
> The fixer – Lady Jane – Asset C36  
> Carter – Detective Joanna Watson – Asset B35  
> Shaw – Abigail Addams ‘Adam’ – Asset 5-29  
> Root – Asset 3-26   
> Bear – Asset 4-4


End file.
